I have a query about this ring attack... I saw this pop up in my Twitter feed, and I know I don't play Sonic Adventure 2, but if I understand TSC rules correctly, you are not allowed to collect the same ring more than once in the same run. (under general rules,) If we look at the description on iexrrr's video, it says that, and I quote from the video's description, "...rings re-spawn a minute after they're collected, so you can backtrack to collect some rings twice." My question is, to someone who understands this game well, does this violate said rule that a ring may not be collected twice in the same run? Because this seems kinda sketchy to me...

It technically does (even though the duplication is limited in scope as RR pointed out), hence iexrrr has reverted his 276 rings submission after recognizing this; 244 rings is still max for Route 280 Mission 1 (and 260 for Mission 5), under the current competition rules.